Links/Other Resources

This page will feature links and in some cases further information regarding additional tools and resources. This will always be a work in progress as is the nature of these evolving times. There is some unavoidable crossover usage so a few links will most likely be posted in a couple of areas.

Note : Despite trying to keep this lean and to the point it seems it is possible for it to get bloated and overwhelming very quickly and easily. Having said that if you feel there is something that really should be represented in the list please let me know.

The main idea is to gather deep knowledge on a few similarly deep packages and a general workable knowledge of the others. But not so many that it becomes confusing and counterproductive.

Much of the decision to only include certain links lies mostly between personal preference and experience, so if you have different experience and preferences again please comment below.

Most of this I have tried and can vouch for, though there are some I am in the process of going through and checking that based on recommendation deserve an early inclusion in this list.

TAL – Noisemakeran improved version of TAL – Eleck7ro and has a completely new synth engine and a lot of improvements in sound and usability. The synth also includes a small effect section with a reverb, chorus and a simple bit crusher effect

SAMPLER

LinuxSamplerThe misleadingly titled (because it’s multiplatform) LinuxSampler project was founded with the goal to produce a free, streaming capable open source pure software audio sampler with professional grade features, comparable to both hardware and commercial Windows/Mac software samplers and to introduce new features not yet available by any other sampler in the world

KontaktWorld Class commercial sampler has a free version that comes with a limited library

UVI WorkstationAnother commercial product that provides a free version with a smaller library of sounds

Yellow Tools Independence Freecombines the technologies of Virtual Instruments, premium sound libraries and workstation workflow in one single creative software solution. (there is also a pro version at different levels the basic version is 99 euros)

SampleTank FreeA fully working, expandable version of SampleTank. Simple to use and easily expandable with ReTank refills and sound libraries

PSP PianoVerbspecial kind of reverberation originally provided by piano strings

MVerb is intended to provide a practical demonstration of Dattorro’s figure-of-eight reverb structure and provide the open source community with a high quality reverb

Reverb by Hotto Engineering uses a Feedback Delay Network (FDN) to create early reflections and a diffuse echo field. It is possible to create slap, flutter and clean echos by selecting appropriate values for the echo delay and gain

Equalizers

SonEQdigital equalizer that takes parts from some vintage gear and combines them. SonEQ has 3 bands, bass, middle and treble. Also, SonEQ has a pre-amp section

SplineEQis a linear phase equalizer plugin. Designed to be simple and flexible, SplineEQ allows you to create filters using Bézier splines, the best known way to design curves

TAL-USEespecially designed after some tilt eq’s from the 70’s. This type of eq allows to adjust the audio material without changing the character of a sound to much

Bluecat Triple EQ3 bands semi-parametric equalizer that can be controlled as a single filter with customizable shape. It includes a low shelf filter, a high shelf filter and a boost/cut peak filter

HepTode Deepcrunch and HeavyTone Inspired by the famous Soldano SLO-100 Overdrive channel, has this typical High Gain sound that was found in the 80’s tube preamps. Simulates the warm sound of tubes and preserves their dynamic characteristics

TAL BitcrusherA common bitcrusher with some useful additions. There is a low and highshelf EQ and a noise cross modulator included.

TAL TubeThe characteristic of tubes and an additional amplifier mode. It’s very suitable for adding higher harmonics and can give more excitement and analog character to digital sounds or drums. At extreme values it can also be used as a grungy distortion effect

CamelCrusher a ‘colouring’ multi-effect plugin. It offers two characteristically different distortion sounds which can be blended together to create a wide variety of tones and textures

Modulation

BlueCat ChorusStandard chorus but can also enable you to drastically change your sound and produce strange pitch modulation or crazy ‘bubbles’ effects

BlueCat Flangervery harsh and metallic or on the contrary very soft. You can obtain a wide range of sounds with this plug-in

BetaBugs – MonstaChorusa true analog style stereo chorus effect with a simple set of controls and fantastic sound quality. It features the usual depth and speed controls, plus a mixture knob to control the ratio of original to effected signal

TAL Flangereasy to tweak stereo flanger effect with its own special sound and some asymmetric analog like components in the feedback corner. Useful for a wide range of flanger effects from subtle to extreme

Voxengo Tube Ampapplies asymmetric tube triode overdrive usually found in single-tube microphone pre-amp boxes. The sound this plug-in produces varies from a mild “warm” overdrive to a fuzzy distortion

Voxengo AnSpecan analog-style third-octave spectrum analyzer plug-in for professional music production applications

Ohm Force – Frohmage Filtera resonant filter, a unique palette of sounds, combining lowpass filtering and analogue crunch with a bunch of special features

PSP – Vintage Meterprovides professional VU and PPM metering for mono and stereo tracks. All parameters like integration times and reference levels are widely adjustable to make this free plug-in suitable for any application

BIOROID – Turntablist Procan load a sample and perform turntable style effects on it. You can scratch, change pitch, and even spin the audio up and down just like on a real turntable

MVibratoPacked with features, it’s high quality audio engine handles up to eight channels of surround sound while the simple interface makes our adjustable shape vibrato a breeze to use

AmpLion Free gives you a chance to try the quality of ampLion’s simulation. For free, you get an ultimate model of one of the most famous and guitar amps ever made

Open Source Drumkit a free multisampled drumkit. It is in the public domain, which means that you can do just about what you want with it. The kit contains a kick, snare, hihat, ride, crash, 3 toms and a gong. The kit weighs in at about 600MB, and has lots of velocity layers and possibilities for round robin. It has a realistic, unprocessed; dry and “crisp” sound

Mildon Lite Piano Freehigh-quality 16-bit samples compressed to OGG format. A free WAV version is also available, which was converted from the compressed OGG format for sample players that only support WAV format. If you want the best quality, you can buy the full-resolution Acoustic Piano for only $9, available in 24-bit 48k sample rate. Also available in 16-bit upon request

World Tek 2 Freebee Pack‘World Tek Vol 2’ was produced by sound designer Jeff Rhodes, and multi-instrumentalist, Todd Milne. It’s jam-packed with 600+ loops and samples. Stand-out features include the 189 flute and wind instrument loops, along with acoustic drum loops and other instrument loops. Tempos range from 61 to 154 BPM

MellotronTaken from a 30 year old Mellotron M400S, serial #500 a few years ago

Hapi vs Xylophonelayering a Hapi Tank Drum and a Xylophone. It has a lovely bell like tone. 54 MB download

krita is a KDE program for sketching and painting, offering an end–to–end solution for creating digital painting files from scratch by masters. Fields of painting that Krita explicitly supports are concept art, creation of comics and textures for rendering

Meshlabopen source, portable, and extensible system for the processing and editing of unstructured 3D triangular meshes. The system is aimed to help the processing of the typical not-so-small unstructured models arising in 3D scanning, providing a set of tools for editing, cleaning, healing, inspecting, rendering and converting this kind of meshes

DiaGTK+ based diagram creation program roughly inspired by the commercial Windows program ‘Visio’Avidemuxa free video editor designed for simple cutting, filtering and encoding tasksFreeCADa general purpose 3D CAD modeler

XnViewview and convert graphic files, works well as a thumbnail viewer for many image formats

Notable windows only – Xnormalan application to generate normal / ambient occlusion / displacement maps. It can also project the texture of the highpoly model into the lowpoly mesh (complete texture transfer, even with different topologies)

CourseraA great all round learning resource, education for everyone, for free

That’s it for now! Hope you find something useful. Feel free to comment in any additional links/resources for me to add/take a look at. Many thanks!

Last edited on July 16th 2013

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